Glorious Gardens of Teetering Rust, Page 4

  Chapter 4 – Shifting Lines and Changing Angles...

  Brandon lacked the courage to stare into his camper’s cracked mirror, not after feeling the tug of so many corners on his trek back to his cot from the crane, not after witnessing what the yard had done to the skin of his shambling uncle.

  Instead, Brandon gazed upon the large nylon canvas unfurled beneath his feet. The work confounded him further at night than it had in the morning. The play of light and shadow twisted differently. The lines of ovals and blocks seemed to have changed. He drew his scraped and orange chin closer to the canvas and swore that the angles were somehow different. Brandon shifted, and his fingers twitched.

  Had an uncle or stranger entered his camper to revise the canvas’s pattern? Brandon doubted it. A stranger would not have been able to find the path to his habitat through the salvage, no matter that the camper was not far from the main gate. He doubted an uncle might have changed the canvas lines, for Brandon rubbed his index finger against the shapes and discovered when he withdrew the digit that not an ounce of ochre clung to his skin, or that his touch left any smudge. Brandon rubbed his head and further stained his head with rust. Whatever difference he perceived in the pattern had to be on account of the weariness that blurred his vision.

  No matter his suspicions, Brandon did not wait long before falling into his cot. He would wait for whatever dream might whisper to him. His day was too long. His arms throbbed too much to concern himself with whatever he might find come morning.

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